2008/9 Fiesta long term update

[greenfoam]

Hey guys although I don't post much anywhere these days. I promised myself when the Fiesta reached 90,000ks I'd give you an update how how it went since I'm doing more Km's than most/all of you and had one of the very first sold.

It's a manual petrol Zetec for those that don't remember. It's now on it's 3rd set of Hancook tyres and at 90,000ks. Zero problems with the car mechanically so far. Long term (since new) average speed is 69km/h and the fuel consumption is between 5.0 and 5.6 depending on the quality of the road,. Usually 5.5 or 5.6 in my area. On one of the early tunes it was doing under 5.0 quite often but the later update tunes don't seem to be as agressive as that one was :(. I think they have detuned them a bit for all the people that were pinging along on 91 octane.

Once or twice in those 90,000ks it's failed to start first attempt (don't know why) but did start second go both times.

It's stood up to some fairly rough road conditions, I've hit a blown off tread from a truck (blew off the truck as it was going past so I didn't even see it before it hit), had huge amount of stones throw at the car and even had about a shovel full of stone screening fall straight off the side of a on coming truck and shower the entire car with stones on the highway. So as you can imagine the window and front end of the car have uncountable amounts of little stone chips. But that's life in the bush. The bumper has a few small cuts in it from the truck tyre I hit in the middle of the night in QLD but otherwise undamaged which was amazing since that was a fair solid impact.

The worst thing is I'm currently driving with a bent 16 inch alloy rim, not sure when that happened but it would have been a pot hole at some stage, although I haven't hit one that I felt was bad enough to damage a good rim so they must be fairly weak. The tyre guy showed it to me on the balancer and it's fairly badly bent so I do need one new wheel, hopefully they don't cost too much.

The gearbox seems to get into reverse much better with some age on it and that's about it :!) Overall we've been really impressed with the car, the amount of times I had it pulling insane amount of sideways load on the car down the highway to avoid obstacles and animals woud be in the dozens and I haven't stacked it yet. Most larger cars I would have stuck in a tree under the same conditions.

That area near the back wheel that cops all the stones off the road essentially has no paint left on it but hasn't rusted at all so that's something :p (this was patched up on the newer ones with a clear plastic thing stuck over that area) so I think only a problem with the early cars. I haven't hassled the dealer over that since it's not much point now that the rest of the car has taken so many stones and is past the point of being stressed about new car damage

[dannyhilton]

Firstly, great to hear from you greenfoam! Secondly, great write up.

I only just hit 22,000 the other day (on my 22nd birthday, my car is a freak) so the fact your on 90,000km is bewildering to me. Can't report any start failures my end, and my fuel economy is much like yours. Have noticed that since first getting it, the consumption has increased, city, urban and extra urban all are higher by about .5L per 100km. But having mid fives and high sixes makes me very happy. Can't report any damaged rims, touch wood, but I guess when you've got 90,000 clicks you're bound to have a few niggles. I personally think the worst aspect is the air con.

Again, top write up and great to hear from a familiar face. How is that pet elf of yours, any centre and glovebox lighting to report on!!!???

[greenfoam]

I have an Elf ? I guess my wife looks like an elf lol (wondering what elf). I don't think there is any light in the glovebox. Or at least there isn't now if there was :P. I have taken it to a suspension specialist that's really good with his stuff to have the front and rear checked. I was advised to do this since the tyre wear on the inside of the rear is pretty extreme and to make sure it was within specs before the warranty is out. The suspension guy said it was all ok and it's just going to burn though tyres pretty quick due to the extreme camber they run, he said Suzuki Swifts do the same thing but it's the price you pay to go around a corner well. He had a good look around the car and a bit of a drive and said he reckons this is a really well made and good little car.

I'm going to get the old tune that was giving me really good economy put back in it at some stage if thats possible, I need to look up what one it was, I mentioned it in a post on here once.

I don't use the aircon so that's fine, I don't like how it feels cold on my skin :P so it must work a bit. I did have to use it in QLD a bit because the humidity was fogging the car but not because of the temperature

[dannyhilton]

Remember the green elf, you were going to show everyone your pet elf when a certain member who claimed to have a glovebox light and rear seat lights (cough: CandyMan) showed us all his 'accessories,' or am I just retarded!

[greenfoam]

Ah that sounds like something I would say when someone was telling a bullsh*t :P.

I've decided after reading the warranty book that I should get the wheel under warranty since I haven't been driving the car in any unreasonable way. Just down normal roads that happen to be bumpy in this area. If the wheel isn't strong enough for normal sealed roads well figure it's hardly any fault of mine but Ford AU's for not testing it here. In fact I can't see any reason why it shouldn't be strong enough for unsealed roads too, not that I drive on them, but I'd like to think I could if I wanted to. So that's what I'll do

[dannyhilton]

Good luck. The term 'getting blood from a stone' comes to mind!

[GoesLikeAZetec]

Awesome update greenfoam! 90K already. man you do some kms. ours is up to 28k now and going strong...

Is there any chance of a picture or two of the area where the stones hit?

Our average around town is 6.0 -6.5ltrs but its pretty hilly where we live.

Good luck with getting a wheel out of Ford Oz, you'd be lucky to get a coffee!

[JClarke]

Awesome update greenfoam!
Mine's 18 months old and already at 32000km+
needs attention on the front tires (to be replaced) and an overdue servicing :/

[Caydus]

Hmmm, that's damn good for economy off all you guys.

Admittedly, my car's only done ~2100k (WT 1.6l Auto), im averaging 8.6, last few tanks were 95 and only one dip where i went to the blue mountains and back in one day, i got 7.6l/100km.

Wouldn't describe myself as having a lead right foot, but not exactly grandma either.


So worth getting checked out?

[GoesLikeAZetec]

Just wait till you take it in for the 1000km checkup service I reckon...

Also where you live seems to change things a fair bit. When I went to visit relatives in the country where its completely flat roads, I could average 5.0-5.5 really easily. But at home where its hilly 6.5 is fairly common over a tank of fuel.

If you can find a flat piece of road that you can sit on 80-100kmh on and reset the fuel counter, you'll be able tell what it gets normally.

Let us know how you go

[dannyhilton]

You may already know, but you need to reset the fuel meter, which can be done by first selecting the fuel economy on the indicator stalk and when you're at the economy press and hold the stalk in. You'll see the lines appear then it'll go to 0. I reset every two or three tanks but overall happy with my economy.

You may just need a new engine tune, that has helped a few of us!

[JClarke]

Originally Posted by dannyhilton

You may already know, but you need to reset the fuel meter, which can be done by first selecting the fuel economy on the indicator stalk and when you're at the economy press and hold the stalk in. You'll see the lines appear then it'll go to 0. I reset every two or three tanks but overall happy with my economy.

You may just need a new engine tune, that has helped a few of us!

Gee, I gotta blame for myself, until I just learnt something new from you, Danny!

My encomy ha remained 6.6 since the car left the caryard more than 18 months ago and I never thought about resetting it.
I sometimes wonder - how it worked, I thought it would automatically update, but guess, I was wrong. :/ Thanks Danny.

[Ms_Jam]

You may just need a new engine tune

Sorry if this is an uninformed question.

I don't have the servicing booklet in front of me, but I can't recall seeing anything there about tuning. Is it done as part of a scheduled service?

Or (sigh) do you have to pay for it? How much?

[Caydus]

Owch, engine tune? sounds complicated.

I've been tracking my L/100k with a smartphone app. You guys reckon it's going to be covered by the 3000km courtesy service?

[dannyhilton]

Originally Posted by JClarke

Thanks Danny

My pleasure. Don't feel bad. The day I picked my car up I read the instruction booklet twice, and sat in the car a good five hours playing with things and putting my learnings into action! I'm the freak here.

Originally Posted by Ms_Jam

Sorry if this is an uninformed question. Or (sigh) do you have to pay for it? How much?

Don't stress! This is something Ford should do at every service. Just like your computer needs updates, as bugs or errors are fixed, so does your cars computer. These can help with things like engine economy, and it don't cost a cent! Well you pay for the service, ask them to update the engine and stereo, and they should do it. You shouldn't have to ask but I find if you don't they don't bother. They simply check on their computers for updates and then apply it to your car. Took them 1/2 hour to update my stereo a few weeks back.

A certain update that greenfoam mentions made the economy amazing!

[JClarke]

Originally Posted by dannyhilton

My pleasure. Don't feel bad. The day I picked my car up I read the instruction booklet twice, and sat in the car a good five hours playing with things and putting my learnings into action! I'm the freak here.

Very nice - I only read the book once and threw it back in the glove box. Didn't bother to re-read again. But I might want to pick your brain once more....maybe two.

One - My father at some point asked me how would you know if there was an engine oil problems since there WAS no dash display showing that part in the fiesta, and I checked the book - it only will tell you if it occurs. *shrug*

two - I noticed in the display, well not directly to the display, there is a green light on the bottom left corner and it has been like that, for what, ages? Do you or anyone else know what this means? I had a look and I guess, I shrugged it off.....

[GoesLikeAZetec]

what does the little green light look like? is it a symbol?

[JClarke]

Originally Posted by GoesLikeAZetec

what does the little green light look like? is it a symbol?

Seems like a setting mechanic look - shows on the bottom left corner....

[Franco Cozzo]

I can't get mine under 6.3L/100km, but I haven't had any ECU updates and its a Jan 09 build.

[Twinpiston]

Pic!!!!!

[JClarke]

Originally Posted by Twinpiston

Pic!!!!!

I have it on my iPhone however I am having trouble with the phone so hopefully at some point today I will get the pic shown up here.

[JClarke]

Finally - after a few reboot - got the photos over to my PC
Here it is.

[JClarke]

btw, greenfoam, sorry to hijack your thread....

[dannyhilton]

Mine shows the green 'cog' only when the stereo is on. It turns off when the car is off? Does it stay on when the car is locked? Not even sure what it is...

[JClarke]

Originally Posted by dannyhilton

Mine shows the green 'cog' only when the stereo is on. It turns off when the car is off? Does it stay on when the car is locked? Not even sure what it is...

Mine shows when the car is turned on, it disappears when the car is turned off.
I don't know either...

[dannyhilton]

Originally Posted by JClarke

Mine shows when the car is turned on, it disappears when the car is turned off. I don't know either...

My guess is there's a fault. Take it to Ford and ask them to update the stereo software (they did mine, took half an hour). Stereo doesn't freeze all the time now!

As for the engine software, I'm STILL running rAE? WTF? I've asked twice to have it updated?

[Foobar]

Originally Posted by dannyhilton

Mine shows the green 'cog' only when the stereo is on. It turns off when the car is off? Does it stay on when the car is locked? Not even sure what it is...

After messing around with this for a short while, as best I can work out, all those icons (lets call them icons) on the left correspond to the availability and currently active 'mode' that the unit is in.

In Danny's picture, the middle icon is red indicating that he is in ipod/aux connectivity mode which can also be clearly seen on the large screen. All the other icons are green meaning (in order, I think) that the CD player, radio, phone and menu are all available but not currently active. Switching to those should make the respective icons go red.

5 buttons (cd player, radio, aux, phone, menu) and 5 corresponding icons.

The only time the green 'cog' icon (bottom one) is the only one showing in my WT is when I have the keys in, aux on but radio turned off. Looking closely, the MENU button is also backlit at the same time. So, what I think all this means is that at this point, I can hit the menu button as it has functionality, nothing else does as which is also indicated by no other buttons being backlit.

I've probably not nailed it but go have a play and come back with your own findings. I didn't spend an eternity on this, just a couple of mins. It started to make some sense once it was obvious those icons represented the 5 buttons.

If however your vehicle is still showing this green cog icon after the keys are out and everything is very much off, then I'd expect this is a minor issue of some sort or perhaps a bug in the firmware you have. They are upgradable apparently and it can probably be fixed but I doubt it's worth the hours of frustration of being told there's no problem and nothing they can do.

If anyone finds anything different to what I've said, please feel free to correct me or add your findings etc.

[GoesLikeAZetec]

That sounds right to me. Thats how ours works as well.

[greenfoam]

Hey, about the engine software I think rAE was the original software for the first manuals that made it to Australia. The first one I was getting good fuel economy with was rA0. Currently it's running r80, I strongly believe rA0 was a more agressive and better tune for fuel economy. r80 is still ok and still way better than the early tune, but not as good as rA0 so I'm hoping to be able to go back to rA0 somehow at some point

That first tune rAE was rubbish and here's a thread about how to check

http://www.fordforums.com.au/showthr...11269971&pp=25

[GoesLikeAZetec]

Im wondering if ours got changed at the 30k service a while ago, because the fuel economy has been 1/2 a litre down on average... I should go check